230 
Calanura. INSECTS. Scolytidas. 
lower part of the leaf by means of the spines on the 
liind legs. The cut is copied by Mr. Holmes from 
Sturm’s catalogue. 
Fig. 125. 
The group Calandridce contains some of the largest, 
Rhyncophorus colossus, R. longimanus, and some of 
the smallest of the weevils (Sitophibis granarius), &c. 
Rhyncophorus palmarum.* — This beetle is of a dark 
black ; the elytra have five long and a few shorter 
lateral striae. The podex is triangular, and fringed 
with hairs ; the beak of the male is furnished with a 
longitudinal brush. The larva is short, fat, and rusty 
yellow ; the head is brown, as are spots on the thorax 
and flattened tail. Such is the description of Guilding. 
This large insect is found in various parts of the 
tropics of the New World. Its larva perforates dead or 
injured palms, and hence the specific name of the per- 
fect insect is derived. It is chiefly the Gru-gru {Cocos 
fusiformis), a palm of the same genus as the Coco, 
which it drills. The larva also occasionally attacks 
the sugar-cane. 
Although a small insect, yet none of its tribe is more 
destructive than the Corn Weevil {Sitophilus granarius) 
a little snouted beetle of a brownish-red colour, with 
furrowed elytra shorter than the body. At times vast 
cpiantities of corn and other grain are destroyed by this 
weevil, which attack these seeds when stored in grana- 
ries and often occasion very serious damage, as they 
devour grain both in the grub state and as beetles. It 
is one of the most prolific of coleopterous insects, if the 
report is true that a pair of these weevils may produce 
six thousand in one year. If grain be kept cool and 
frequently moved, it is not liable to being attacked, for 
it is when the corn is housed that the female deposits 
her eggs in it ; the young maggots as soon as hatched 
burrow into the grain, each maggot selecting a different 
seed, the inside of which it devours ; and having under- 
gone their various transformations no time is lost in 
depositing eggs for another brood. 
Rice is attacked by another species allied to the corn 
weevil, but ratber smaller, and having two red spots 
on each elytron. 
The Borer- weevil {Calandra sacchari) an insect 
which commits great ravages on the crops of sugar- 
cane in Jamaica, is said to have been introduced into 
that island from Tahiti in 1797. Mr. King of Port- 
land has described this insect and its transformations. 
The egg is the size of a small bead, and is partially 
transparent ; the female deposits this within the suc- 
culent vessels of the cane, where the adliering footstalk 
* Curculio palmarum — Lin. ; Calandra palmarum — Fabr. 
of the leaf keeps the decayed foliage hanging to the 
germinating joint. The egg is hatched when the eye 
or growing bud begins to show the active Influences of 
both heat and moisture. The maggot, as soon as 
hatched, worms its way from the verge of the foot- 
stalk into the very body of the succulent and vegetat- 
ing shoot, where it increases in dimensions. It then 
occupies the centre of the plant, making its way 
upwards through the growing cane, but remaining 
within the sweet and perfected joints, and never 
ascending to the greener tops to devour the germ and 
destroy vegetation. It entirely exhausts the saccharine 
fluid in which it has lodged, filling the excavation it 
makes with an excrementitious deposit extremely 
injurious to the cane liquor from the mill ; deteriorating 
it rapidly if it remain untempered while running into 
the pans. When the canes are cut the maggot has 
passed into the pupa state. The pupa is inclosed in a 
cocoon, which is a shroud of decayed trash curiously 
formed by the maggot. The shreds of which this 
cocoon is formed are plaited and wound together, and 
so closely fastened at the ends that the air is excluded. 
It continues in this state only for a short time. From 
this comes out the snouted beetle, striped yellow and 
brown. 
Of the group Cossonidoi there are eight British 
species — Mesites Tardii (an Irish and South of Eng- 
land insect named after Mr. Tardy), Phlceophagus, 
Rhyncolus, and Pentarthrum. 
This ends the vast army of Weevils with its sixteen 
thousand known species. 
Family — SCOLYTIDHS (Tree-banes). 
Connecting the Rhynchophora, through Cossonus and 
Khyncholus, we come to the ScolytiDjE, also called 
Hylesinid.®, small beetles of a brown or rust colour, 
somewhat cylindrical in form, and rounded both in 
front and behind. I would propose for them the name 
of Tree-bane, from the damage many of them do to 
trees. The grubs devour the soft inner parts of the 
Fig. 126. 
Scolytus destructor. 
bark, which they loosen in this way from the wood ; 
and trees attacked by them soon languish and decay. 
The elms in the neighbourhood of London and Paris 
have been much destroyed by the Scolytus destructor, 
an insect of this family (fig. 126). In one of the mining 
